#testing day at work is the best

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Mike misunderstood Vanny’s request,,

[homestuckreplay]

Homestuck with a Different Starting Character

In some video games, players are given a choice of which character they’d like to begin the story with. Homestuck doesn’t allow this – Act 1 begins with the player as John Egbert, and Rose Lalondegets seamlessly folded into the story – but Acts 2 and 3 take us back in time to the moment the story starts, and give us a glimpse of what a Homestuck starring Dave, Jade or even the Wayward Vagabond would be like.

Starting with Dave. This means beginning with pages 309-333, 337-357, 381-384, 443-466, 562-613, and then Dave’s full strife with Bro (p.665, 836, 871, 1070). During this whole time, both the narrative and Dave’s friends would be talking about Sburb and stressing the importance of Dave playing it to save Rose’s life, and as readers, we would either have to take it on faith that Sburb is capable of that, or we’d be skeptical and ultimately very surprised when Dave eventually boots up the game and sees Rose. In other words, we would get an immersive Dave experience. Dave also really loves John and makes that clear in his earliest pages, so as readers we’d be excited to meet this even cooler guy that the existing coolguy loves so much. However, Dave’s resistance to reader commands such as ‘retrieve arms from cinderblocks’ wouldn’t stand out in contrast to other characters, and the Midnight Crew would be the second characters we meet visually, making this comic within a comic feel plot crucial.

Starting with Jade. The story would begin at the start of Act 3 and continue uninterrupted to page 835, followed by several other Jade sections scattered throughout the act leading up to ‘Jade: Pester John’ (p.1073). This would be out first glimpse of ‘real’ John, but we’d actually see him sooner in the Midnight Crew intermission, which would call into question his entire character arc when we met him for real – does John suck so bad at his sylladex because he’s just escaped from a comic into the real world? Jade is the weirdest character who breaks narrative patterns, but her fourth wall breaking, naming herself, interacting directly with the reader, and having multiple fetch modi, instruments and home decorations would feel like the norm. Going from the weirdest to the most surface-normal character could be an interesting story, but I think it’d work better if it was done intentionally. Jade has a life filled with exciting things like her dreambot, radioactive pet dog, and mystic frog ruins, so we’d be waitingfor the other shoe to drop with similar weirdness for the other characters, and it never would. Also, Jade’s story is so interlinked with WV’s that I think introducing them consecutively was a really good move, so it’d have to be Jade and WV before meeting the other kids.

Starting with the Wayward Vagabond. This would mean beginning with the ‘Years in the future…’ pages (p.248, 271, 439, 509), followed by WV’s extended sequence creating Can Town in the bunker (p.666-756) and ‘WV: Ascend’. This would introduce us to John through WV’s command terminal and an incomprehensible list of past/future commands, telling us right away that John is being commanded in-universe as well as out, and to Rose, Dave and Dad through brief glimpses of their positions at the end of act 2. I actually love this idea, and think this would be a fascinating prologue. The first glimpse of Skaian cosmology would come from WV’s wall drawings and chessboard, and we’d unearth Sburb like an archaeologist, piecing together that something very bad happened centuries earlier and that a very small number of humans might have survived. It would probably raise a lot of curiosity about the meaning of ‘captchalogue’, which is mentioned only for WV to say he doesn’t know what it means. It would also emphasize the role of timeloops and paradoxes much sooner, and begin with an already large-scale, zoomed-out story, instead of the slow build we currently have.

Starting with Rose is challenging, as her story begins already very entwined with John’s, but here’s some bonus options instead.

Reading Homestuck chronologically by when its pages are set would (right now at page 1088) mean starting with pages 999-1000, which take place on December 1, 2008. This begins with Jade’s birthday instead of John’s, and keeps the focus on birthday gifts that starting at page 1 has. It hints at Jade’s powers, and the supernatural elements of the story, right away, and it shows the reader John’s graffitied and clown-covered walls before we see his blank room, so we know something weird is going on with this kid from day one. The trolls are discussed more than Rose and Dave in this conversation, so starting here makes it seem like the trolls will be much more important to the kids’ adventures than they are so far.

Reading Homestuck at one page per day, an update schedule more comparable to other webcomics, would take almost three years to read everything that’s been posted so far. It would also dramatically change the story’s pacing. Jade Harley would spend five days picking up fruit (p.781-5) but ‘WV: Ascend’ would still be a single day. Flash updates such as ‘Dave: Abscond’ would help avoid a common problem with webcomics (including Problem Sleuth) where fight scenes take up a lot of out of universe time, but weeks of an extended sylladex joke would probably frustrate more readers into quitting.

Reading Homestuck with just the pictures. I have heard about people doing this, and it makes sense – most webcomics keep their text entirely within the strips, and external text is optional. Following John’s actions early on is okay without text, but it’s almost impossible to get a sense of his character.

Reading Homestuck with just the text. I think it would be nearly impossible to get to grips with captchalogue mechanics this way, which are already lots of people’s least favorite part of the story, plus it would remove all the interactivity and music, which are a big part of what scratches the brain.

Reading Homestuck by randomly sorting the numbers 1-1088 and reading the pages in that order. DO NOT DO THIS.

[dapper-lil-arts]

DAMN!! NOW THIS IS A TRIAL!!! Happy birthday to Kid icarus uprising, one of my favorite games! Here's to my favorite boss fight in the game, the Great Sacred Treasure -v-

[piningpercussionist]

Oh! Fucking. Duh. Obvious Roxie post I can make today: here's an emote I made for the sp:te server! (With variants of different degrees of completion...)

I was gonna go back and shade the comic colors Roxie but. Just ended up going w the colors picked off the screenshot. This screenshot, specifically!

[frutavel]

Mechagnomes? How about mechagob (kind of)?

I've been adding little bits to her story lately and it's still on the very rough outline stage but the gist of it: Acácia volunteered to test drive a new prosthetic tech. The original test models were... bad, to say the least, but she was able to get much better custom made ones after the fact.

Her prosthetics are powered by a mix of arcane magic, elemental magic and a secret third thing. They connect to her nerve endings through magic and implants along her spine, but they're not and will never be perfect replacements to the limbs she lost.

[ask-hermit-tommy]

sorry,forgot.the meeting we mentioned previously is being held on the twentieth,3:30 pst.if the date changes we will let you know.

[ ^ and update, i think? ]

I.. okay..?

[thedailyvio]

Day 253

[deus-ex-mona]

my five surviving braincells when something remotely good happens:

[b4kuch1n]

Hello! As you guys have seen, I’ve been figuring out the dip pens recently for a project, and I’d love to draw a guy of your choice as practice!

Head Over Here (Or Input The Link In The Picture Above) To Get A Slot

Three slots will be available every time I open for this! Please read and follow the instruction for sending references upon purchase; if references are not sent after 24 hours since the purchase is made, I’ll assume you’ve cancelled the commission and refund. If you need an extension on that, please leave me a word in Tumblr message or email!

UPDATE 20/06/2023: 3/3 slots filled. Thank you so much for your support, and please stay tuned for the next round!

[cloud-somersault]

fucking crying because of the immediate implication in chapter 6 of the epilogue that macaque and wukong teaching MK together is absolutely the way to go because the progress MK makes is immediate, overly successful, and cannot be denied

and the way they taught and thought about things was good and worked very well for MK, who needed that hour to build confidence in himself and practice in a low-pressure environment with no stakes, no catastrophes, nothing on the line.

MK believed in the love and wonder of magic while cloud-somersaulting, and he did the same thing with the tree. he did magic for magic's sake. he did it because he wanted to, because he wanted to see a flower bloom. but because of his connection to the element of wood, MK's magic is much easier to direct. He probably thought of a ginkgo tree for like a SECOND and his magic was like "YUP! okay!"

i just love the conversation they have with MK before leaving him alone. They give him what he needs, they tell him that if he fails, it's not his fault; it's theirs. they rewrote the method of teaching elemental magic just for him. they love and care about MK so much and they want him to succeed it's so precious!!!

physically holding myself back from just making the epilogue be more magic lessons, but nooooo we gotta have shadowpeach feelings and wukong has to give his mans a plum or some shit 🙄

[theflyingfeeling]

yes it's just me whining about the same thing for the billionth time, pls just scroll past nothing new to see here 👋

[deathsmallcaps]

I swear. I comprehend I’m not the best teaching intern in the world. I also was not the best camp counselor, cashier, and so on. But if my observer gives me so much criticism that I cry again I’m going to be so motherfucking pissed.

Especially since she’s asking me to stay late just to review me. While I have family visiting. And I’m gone for most of the day. And my commute is over half an hour. Which isn’t bad around here but still.

[spceboyz]

LIKE for a johnny starter!

( there is a possibility that starters / replies from nny will be heavy on gore or darker subjects, interact at your discretion! )

[silverislander]

actually i am going to elaborate on that psychoanalyzing blorbo post from days ago lol. long story short i've been trying since abt september to kind of start getting my shit together, maybe get into some kind of club or hobby that will help me work on my anxiety, maybe do some bucket list kind of stuff i've been putting off. and then last month mom got diagnosed w breast cancer

my Consistent response to things going wrong in my life is avoidance, isolating myself and trying to repress shit, so i gave up on all of those plans immediately bc i felt like it would put strain on my family and i started trying my best to focus on literally anything else bc i have shit to do + people/a job that needs me + i really couldn't face the reality of it right away

and that news came literally days after act 1 aired. so watching caitlyn then go on to try to repress any and all of her emotions/wants in favour of trying to be the person she believes everyone around her wants her to be and seeing exactly how badly that fucks up her life. felt extremely fucking pointed let me fucking tell you

[loumauve]

the little girl at the bus stop just had the most enthusiastic, info-dump-y of rambles about how the bus that's coming is "literally the best bus" bc it's apparently bigger than the others which you "can see from its shape" and how great this bus ride is going to be

[thedailyvio]

Day 217